Faculty Notes

From Ted Parker
David Levine professional development day
Building community: a community of caring

Website for the day: king-pgd03.wikispaces.com

• When the emotional needs of students are unmet, it's going to affect their behavior.
• Seeing empathy as "a bundle of social skills"
• Knowing that behind every behavior is a story

Howard Gray song: Being too afraid to be a friend/ally. Not intentionally malicious; just afraid

"Emotion is learning"

Events+our responses=outcome

• The only way we can change the outcome is to alter our response to the event.
• We can intentionally create opportunities to help students keep themselves in emotional equilibrium
• Surround the child with a ring of protection as a first step, and then transfer to them some specific or life skills
• Managing life's challenges rather than just coping with them
• Children do not always have be ability to articulate what they need or feel. So we have to decode the behaviors.

Thinking about difficult life situations: some are predictable, and we can plan for them, and help to prepare students for them.

• Prevention vs intervention
• Proactive vs reactive

What we're doing is creating a "container" for emotional safety. What they need is:

• Belonging: affiliation, connection, support
• Power: competence, social skills
• Freedom: voice, independence, accountability
• Fun: engaged in learning, having healthy relationships
• Resilience:

Emmy Werner: Protective factors

Internal and environmental safeguards:

• A charismatic teacher/significant adult
• School succes (competencies)
• Welcoming environment (school-wide, class, groups)
• Predictable and consistent
• Pro-social skills (the great protectors) [rather than just anti-bullying]

Tony Wagner: 21st century survival skills

1. Critical thinking and problem solving
2. Collaboration across networks
3. Agility and adaptability
4. Initiative and entrepreneurialism
5. Effective oral and written communication
6. Accessing and analyzing information
7. Curiosity and imagination (empathy)

Morning breakout

• Tension: to some degree, empathy requires our own experience to connect others' experiences to, and our students--either because of their age or their privilege--often don't have much of that experience. As a result, we have to allow them to fail sometimes, we have to supplement their experience with literature and with trips, and we have to model sensitivity.
• Listening rather than just hearing
• Growing rather than winning
• Feedback rather than criticism

Afternoon setup

• Ritual and common language as deliberate ways of building community.
• Common language example: talk about "being mindful" as a concept, and then when students are inconsiderate, all you need to do is tell them to be mindful.
• When you blame someone else for something, you give your power away.

Imprints

• Family
• School
• Polarizing issues of society
• Heroes and entertainers
• Mores and sexual values
• Imprint/value statements

Afternoon breakout

• Reflecting on the imprints that we've got from our childhood
• What are your buttons? What triggers a strong emotional response from you?

from John Faig

• storytelling is important for empathy
  • screens interfere with empathy
  • sentence-by-sentence communication interferes with empathy
  • win/lose attitude interferes with empathy
  • empathy is understanding that is as close as living the event
• kids teaching kids to build empathy
• teach empathy
  • imagine what would other person sees or hears?
  • imagine how the other person feels
• giving advice to kids is not a great idea (no-win situation)
  • if advice works, then kid will come back for more advice (not empowered)
  • if advice does not work, kid blames adult, gets mad, and is not empowered because he/she does not take ownership
  • in either case, it signals that kid can’t solve own problems
• feedback to help grow (not criticize)
• the more you share the greater the potential for empathy
• social behavior is learned through modeling
  • role-playing with moral dilemma is useful
• decode student behaviors
• give names to intuitive behaviors to better understand and them
• behind every face and behavior is a story
• where do the pressures come from that students face:
  • parents
  • peers
  • school
  • media
  • internal
• children do not always communicate using words; instead they use actions
• prevention is predicting what is coming and acquiring the necessary skills
  • these skills will serve well when something unpredictable happens
  • prevention sometimes requires a leap of faith because there may not be data to support the worries (i.e., event has not yet happened)
• e + r = o
  • event plus response equals outcome
• asking for help is a skill
  • unpopular to ask for help
• container for emotional safety
  • belonging
  • power
  • freedom
  • fun
• Quality World
  • collection of positive memories
  • travels with you to analyze new experiences
• children have private logic of the adult world
  • from emotional imprints
  • colors their lens of the world
• adults affected less by emotional imprints than kids (< 15 years old)
• people interpret events differently through their own lens
  • resolve differences through dialogue to foster understanding
• empathize with students
  • reflect feelings
  • ask questions
  • summarize
• greatest power is being able to make choices
  • take control by not blaming others
• “be mindful”
  • sit up
  • take a deep breathe
  • focus

from Lois Rinaldi

• Empathy? Can it be taught?
• Yes, it can be taught.
• 4th graders - easier than 7th graders to teach empathy
• Environment plays a key role in teaching empathy.
• Parents + teachers + administrators need to be on board with the teaching of empathy.